Phylicia Rashad
Recipient of the 2016 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Leading Actress in a Play for her performance as “Shelah” in Tarell Alvin Mcraney's “Head of Passes” at the Public Theater. Ms. Rashad has had an enduring career on stage, in television, and film. The first African-American actress to win a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress as 'Lena Younger' in Lorraine Hansberry's “A Raisin in the Sun,” receiving a Drama Desk award on Broadway. Other notable Broadway appearances include “August: Osage County,” “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” opposite James Earl Jones, 'Aunt Ester' in “Gem of the Ocean” receiving a Tony Award nomination, “Blue,” “Jelly’s Last Jam,” “Into the Woods,” and “Ain’t Supposed to Die a Natural Death.” She has also appeared Off-Broadway in “Everybody’s Ruby” at New York’s Public Theatre, “Cymbeline,” “The Duplex,” and “Bernarda Alba”at Lincoln Center Theatre, “Helen,” “Puppet Play,” “Zooman and the Sign,” “Sons and Fathers of Sons,” “In an Upstate Motel,” “Weep Not for Me,” “The Great Mac Daddy” at the Negro Ensemble Company,” and “The Sirens” at MTC. Ms. Rashad’s regional work includes “Medea” and “Blues for an Alabama Sky” at the Alliance Theatre, “Every Tongue Confesses” at Arena Stage, and “Gem of the Ocean” at Huntington Stage. Ms. Rashad's best known television roles as 'Claire Huxtable' on “The Cosby Show” and 'Ruth Lucas' on “Cosby” receiving many awards and honors including NAACP Image Awards, People's Choice Awards, and Emmy nominations. Among her film appearances include “Creed,” Tyler Perry's “Good Deeds,” and Perry's film of Ntozake Shange’s “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Is Enuf.” As a director, she made her directorial debut at the Seattle Repertory Theater with “Gem of the Ocean” and has helmed productions at prestigious theaters throughout the United States including The Goodman Theater, Ebony Repertory Theatre, Westport Country Playhouse, the McCarter Theatre, and the Long Wharf Theatre.
What gives you the greatest satisfaction from the creative process of acting?
Collaboration. Theatre is not the result of a singular achievement. It’s not the same as writing a poem or a novel or a symphony. You always have to compare it to dance and music and the visual arts. I enjoy the process of working as an actor working with the director, the playwright, with the cast, of working with the designers and the crew – it’s a complete collaboration.
“A Raisin in the Sun” with Phylicia Rashad, Audra MacDonald, Sanaa Lathan, Justin Martin and Sean Combs
What is your approach as an actress to the first read-through of a play?
It varies; it’s never just one way. Sometimes it’s a completely new experience. That’s always the fun when there are surprises. Discovering something, and even though I may have read the script at least once or twice, there are still surprises. We like the surprises; we want them to happen.
L to R Phylicia Rashad, Audra MacDonald and Sanaa Lathan in “A Raisin in the Sun”
How different is your approach when you’re directing a play?
As a director, what I do is listen. I am not having any expectations. I want to hear the words, the text through the actors’ unique voices.
Among your memorable performances is 'Shelah,' the matriarch in Tarell Alvin McCraney’s “Head of Passes.” What drew you to want to play her?
I like the playwright’s work -- his poetic text and how contemporary the play is. It’s not set in 2016 – the text and the times are regional – yet it’s not so far removed from us today. He captured it very well. I love working in plays in which the playwright has captured the language, the characters through the speech.
It must have been a similar experience for you as Aunt Esther in August Wilson’s “Gem of the Ocean.”
Phylicia Rashad and Anthony Chisholm in “Gem of the Ocean”
His texts are “living texts,” they really are. It’s a gift to have a text that is a “living text.” At the very first day of rehearsal as we were doing the read-through, when I came to the passage when Aunt Esther describes the ‘City of Bones,’ I got caught up in it. I fell into the rhythm of August’s writing; the rhythm carried me through. You just can’t sit down and scan it. The writing is very organic. If you move into it, it will transport you. It took me someplace else.
Does it influence your creative process having the playwright in the room when you rehearse?
You can always ask them questions; that’s very helpful in learning about the character, the playwrights intention. You don’t have it working on a play by Shakespeare; he’s not there. Yet, all the meaning is in his play.
Phylicia Rashad in “Gem of the Ocean”
Many plays deal with an enormous amount of history. How have you learned to deal with historical facts in a play?
An actor can’t play history. The most important thing we do as actors is to connect with one another. I’m always looking for some truth of human behavior – that’s what it’s all about.
In the roles you’ve played, you’ve had to delve into the great realm of the mysterious, the great powers that exist between heaven and earth. How do you find your way to their depth and power?
It comes from the text itself, and with the help of the director – but all of it comes from the text. And then as you continue to work with it, subtle connections are being made for the character throughout the story, as presented through the play. This is the work. Every actor doesn’t work in the same way. Each actor creates their own vocabulary which develops over time and through the work; it’s very real thing, the different ways that actors work. It’s one of the first things I learned as a director sitting on the other side of the table. I had never experienced the different approaches in which actors work on a play.
Phylicia Rashad as Aunt Esther in “Gem of the Ocean” by August Wilson
How does the creative process change for you when you direct?
When I’m directing what changes is that my scope becomes larger. As an actor I’m working with the character whom I’m portraying. As a director, now I’m concerned with an entire production, so I have to hold that vision, and line that up with everything that needs to be done, while making room for all the creative energies in the collaboration, and everything I haven’t yet considered.
We’re faced with great challenges today in our personal lives, in society. What role can the work we do help in the healing process?
I think there’s always been pain in the world. You look back at history --when weren't there things like this happening? But we didn’t have as easy access to the information; we couldn’t learn about it so quickly. So now that we can, maybe together we can do something about it. We should all do what we can, to help in the healing that needs to take place. But the healing can take place in a classroom, it can take place in a grocery store – anywhere that people are conscious of one another – yes, healing can take place.
Phylicia Rashad